Steve Levitt's poker project

How much more succesful can a player be if he knows the odds? What are the best betting strategies for getting the most money out of a winning hand? Are there simple betting strategies that can be used to win money even with losing hands? To what extent does position from the button and position relative to other players matter? Does having a big stack of chips allow a player to bully others and win more of their money? Do people lose big after winning a big hand, or does success follow success? These are some of the many questions we would like to answer.

Our goal is to understand the factors that make players succesful at poker. Many people have written books on poker theory, but there has yet to be a systematic analysis using actual data on what works and what doesn't. University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt hopes to change this and perform the first large scale analysis of poker.

Here is the link.  And by the way, here is Steve's update on car seats vs. seat belts.  Furthermore most of Steve's papers are now on-line.  Thanks to Chris F. Masse and Joseph O'Malley for the pointers.